The Marauders' Most Excellent 7 Step Plan
by Blossomwitch
Summary: A look at how the Marauders might have revealed their Animagus status to Remus, and the hijinks that ensue as they figure out exactly how to execute their plan. Friendship, humor, and the occasional more serious reflection. Rated for language. Chap 8 up: As the year ends, all you have to do to know how things have changed in the group is to look at who's behind the final prank.
1. Prologue to the Plan

**"The Marauders' Most Excellent 7 Step Plan"**

**Chapter One: A Prologue To The Plan**

The day that he got to return from summer vacation to school and his friends had become the happiest day of Remus Lupin's year. But fifth year was different. Fifth year, Remus climbed the steps to the dormitory long after his friends had already arrived, with two worries heavy on his mind.

The first was the prefect badge pinned to his chest. It was this that had made Remus the last to reach their room, as he'd had to help out with getting the first years oriented. It had also prevented him from spending the entire train journey with his friends. Peter had reacted with poorly disguised envy when he'd seen the badge. James and Sirius had shown nothing but resignation, but Remus wondered if the school's biggest troublemakers would carry on in front of them the way they used to. He didn't need anything else to set him apart from his friends.

That was his second worry. No one had said it outright, but Remus had gathered from a slip in one of Peter's letters that the three of them had spent at least some part of the summer together, without inviting him. He had no intention of mentioning it, but he couldn't help but be hurt. Perhaps they didn't feel safe inviting a werewolf along.

It was with these glum thoughts that Remus climbed the stairs to his dormitory, opened the door, and promptly forgot everything he had been worried about.

There was a large stag standing between his bed and James'. For just one moment, Remus and the stag stared at each other. The stag appeared perfectly relaxed to find itself in a Gryffindor dormitory; Remus, for his part, felt as if his face had frozen. He couldn't even blink. His reflexes finally kicked in, and he raised his wand.

And dropped it as somewhere, very near, a dog barked. Remus finally tore his gaze from the stag and saw an enormous black dog draped over Sirius' bed like he owned it. The dog, like the stag, showed no sign of aggression. In fact, it was grinning at him, tongue lolling and tail moving ever so slightly left to right.

Could the others have let them in for a joke? It would not be a record for James and Sirius' earliest prank of the year...

A chittering noise drew Remus' attention to Peter's bed, the one nearest to him. It took him a moment to locate the source, but then the rat on Peter's pillow stood up on his hind legs.

The dog barked again, and Remus yelped in surprise. He looked down quickly to see where his wand had fallen, grabbed it-

-And stood back up to find himself the other three suddenly present, laughing their hearts out. Sirius was draped over his bed, pounding the mattress; Peter was leaning against his headboard, emitting the rapid high-pitched laughter that always accompanied his favorite pranks, and James was apparently so overcome that he had fallen to his hands and knees on the floor, tears of laughter rolling down his face.

The animals were nowhere to be seen. Remus stood there with his wand held loosely in his grip, of half a mind to hex them all, but too confused to actually do it.

"Your face!" Sirius hooted happily from the bed, rolling over onto his back and pointing at Remus. "Your face, mate, it was priceless!"

James appeared to be trying to speak, but he wasn't successful; he was clinging to one of his bedposts, glasses askew, gasping for air. The urge to hex him increased, but Remus told himself he was better than that. "How did you do that?" he asked, as calmly as he could.

"We're Animagi, mate!" Beaming, Sirius bounced off his bed. "May I introduce Messrs. Padfoot-" he made a sweeping bow, doffing an imaginary hat-"Wormtail-" Peter waved, "And Prongs," Sirius added with a slight touch of distaste, looking at James, who was still red-faced and struggling with fits of giggles.

Remus frowned. "That's impossible."

"Not for us," Sirius replied, with typical modesty. "Took all summer, though."

"Took three years, you mean." These words heralded James' recovery of the faculty of speech. He had pulled himself up onto his bed and was regarding Remus with a good-natured expression that let Remus know that James, at least, viewed himself as laughing with Remus rather than at him. "To figure it out. We just pulled it off this summer. We weren't planning on it taking the whole bloody vacation, but Pettigrew over there gave himself a permanent set of whiskers and we had to figure out what went wrong." Peter looked sheepish.

Remus frowned. "But-why would you-"

"I told you!" Sirius interrupted with a shout, pointing at James. "Pay up, bitch." James made a face and began hunting through his trunk. "I told you he wouldn't get it right away. All right, Remus, lesson time. What do werewolves attack?"

"Humans," Remus replied automatically, not understanding what Sirius was getting at.

"But not animals, right?"

The other three began to laugh again at the look of dawning comprehension on Remus' face. "You can't-"

"Sure we can," James interrupted him, retrieving his money bag from his trunk and passing some silver to Sirius. "Trust me, mate, we did our research. It's been done before. There's cases of Animagi swooping in to save the day from some werewolf or other and they totally didn't get attacked. And we even found one way old diary of a bloke who was married when he got the bite, and his wife was an Animagi and he wrote all this stuff about how when he transformed and he was around her, he didn't go quite so crazy and he could remember little bits of what had happened and everything. So we know it works."

"Aren't you proud of us?" Sirius demanded. "We kept this secret for _three whole years_. We started working on it the _day_ you told us. D'you know how hard it is to keep a secret that long?"

Remus thought, _I keep secrets every day, from every one, and I will my whole life._ "This-I-it's not that-" Torn between fear for his friends and a rush of shock and gratitude that he suspected might make him cry, Remus focused on the fear to keep the tears at bay. "This is insane! You won't even be able to get past the Willow to get to me, and even if you did someone would get hurt, and you couldn't keep someone from noticing-"

"Relax, relax." James stood up. "The Marauders are nothing if not prepared. Observe the plan! Step one: the Willow whomps!" James waved his arms around in imitation of the willow's whipping branches. Sirius chuckled and settled onto his bed, safely out of James' reach. "Step two: enter Peter Pettigrew!" Peter sat up tall, beaming. James continued to talk in an animated tone, as though he were commentating on a heavily anticipated Quidditch match. "Disguised as an ordinary rat, the newly christened Wormtail dashes to and fro, small enough to evade the Willow, and makes his way to the base!"

Peter shrank into the form of a rat. Because he was better prepared for it this time, Remus could see the process happen, although it was incredibly fast. Peter bounded back and forth between the posters of his bed a few times, apparently showing off his speed and agility. Then James continued talking and Peter transformed back into a human, looking overwhelmingly pleased with himself. "Once the branches are frozen, Step Three commences. Underneath the handy-dandy invisibility cloak, Wormtail's fellow conspirators approach the Willow and gain the tunnel with ease. Moony's-that's you, by the way-Moony's companions transform and join him for a rollicking good time in the Shrieking Shack."

James pointed-rather theatrically-at Remus. "But what's that I hear, Moony? You are concerned, perhaps, that intrepid mischief makers such as ourselves might get in over our heads with a werewolf, and someone might come to harm? Never fear!" James looked at Sirius. "Padfoot, narrate."

James transformed into the stag again. "Observe the noble Prongs," Sirius said, matching James' dramatic tone. "His size is greater than the wolf's, and his mighty antlers prevent the wolf from coming near to him. In fact, Prongs can back the wolf right against the wall-hey, don't take his eye out," Sirius added, as James made a few uncoordinated jabs with his antlers, apparently demonstrating how he would contain a werewolf. "Step four: at the first sign of aggression Prongs corrals the wolf, preventing him from harming both self and others. Ah," Sirius said, holding a finger up in an admonitory fashion, "but we know our Moony will not be satisfied yet. Our Moony will insist that it is possible to break free from Prongs, and that all contingencies must be covered. That's where I come in."

Sirius and James transformed simultaneously. "Step five," James announced, gesturing to the large black dog once again occupying Sirius's bed. "The Marauders' secret weapon: Padfoot, a canine that matches the wolf's speed and strength, paw for paw and bite for bite. Yes, I said bite, it can't hurt him if he's a dog." Sirius bared his teeth, his tongue lolling again in what was unmistakably a grin. "Such a large canine with such a brave spirit can overpower the wolf-not forever, but long enough for the stag to get back into position and lower his antlers. Between Prongs and Padfoot, the wolf has zero chance of getting past."

Sirius transformed back into himself, and gave a smile that was reminiscent of the dog baring its teeth. "When the moon sets," James continued, "the Marauders return under the invisibility cloak, Peter once again making the Willow safe. Moony waits patiently for Madame Pomfrey, pretending nothing at all has happened, and the Marauders come down from the dormitory pretending to have slept the night away. Mischief managed."

They all looked at Remus expectantly. Remus couldn't speak. After a moment, Sirius said, "Oh crud, he's going to cry."

"Gimme my money back," James said. Sirius sighed and returned the silver.

Remus wanted to object that they were betting on his tears, but he couldn't find the words. That three underage wizards had managed to become Animagi-that they had managed to keep such a powerful secret for three years-that they _wanted_ to be around him, even in his transformations-

"C'mere." Remus obediently sat down on James' bed. James took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye, his expression unusually serious. "The four of us are friends. Friends don't let friends go through bad shit by themselves. Our very honor as Gryffindors is impugned when we are unable to find a way to come to your aid. You wouldn't want to impugn our honor, would you?"

"What's left of it," Peter muttered. Sirius threw a pillow at him.

"We've been going out of our minds trying to figure out a way to help you for three years," James went on, sounding annoyed, though it was doubtful whether it was Remus or Peter he was annoyed with. "We've been _reading books we didn't have to._ And asking suspicious questions of teachers." James studied him. "Well, if you don't like it, at least don't tell the other prefects on us."

"Are you _insane?_" Remus cried.

James grinned, a mischievous grin that let Remus know his reaction was exactly the one James had intended to provoke."See, now he starts to lock onto the awesomeness of it all."

"This... This is..."

Words failed him completely, but that turned out not to matter, as he was tackled from behind. "Hey, don't start crying again," Sirius said, simultaneously pulling Remus' hair and wrenching his shoulder to prevent himself from sliding off the bed. "Seriously, I lose money to James for every tear. Just be happy!"

"Those are happy tears, you idiot," Remus moaned, elbowing Sirius and seeing another grin from James indicating he was rising to the bait again. He didn't care.

"So smile. Laugh." Sirius started tickling him, apparently to force just that behavior. "Just be-a-kid-and stop-worrying-" The pauses were from effort as he sought to contain Remus. Remus had grabbed hold of James and was trying to get away from Sirius by placing James between them. "No more worrying ever. We've got this."

"Worry about yourself, Padfoot," James snarled, apparently getting tired of being used as a human shield and launching his own attack.

Then Peter couldn't stand to be left out, so he threw himself at the bed with some bizarre sort of war cry, and landed on Remus' stomach. "Oohhhhh" Remus groaned.

"Hey-dogpile!" Sirius landed on top of Peter. "Get it, guys? Dogpile! 'Cause I'm a dog?"

"If you suffocate-_ohh!_" Remus complained as James became King of Gryffindor Mountain. "If you suffocate me you will never know the pleasures of running wild with a werewolf."

"Now he gets the awesomeness indeed," Sirius said, somehow managing to free a hand enough to ruffle Remus' hair. "Okay, James-James, I said _okay, _get off-"

"Are you really happy about it?" Peter asked quietly, rolling off Remus as Sirius dragged James to a different bed and a scuffle to see who was going to be sitting on whom commenced. "Or just playing along?"

"I have never been happier about anything in my life."

"I thought so. You're trembling a bit." Peter sized up the battle on the other bed. "Bet you a sickle on James?"

Remus could only shake his head at the utter casualness with which his friends could intersperse casual horse-play with completely revolutionizing his life. Either they had no idea how profoundly they had just changed everything, or they knew and had agreed to make light of it in order to make it easier for him to accept their gift. Remus couldn't quite ascribe that level of emotional maturity to them. They were just so inherently _good_ that they didn't realize how rare goodness like theirs was.

Peter was looking at him with pleading eyes. Remus sighed and said, "All right." Raising his voice, he said, "Sirius, if you need some extra motivation, I'm betting on you."

_I'm betting on all of you._

* * *

><p>(AN: End of part one! This may wind up a stand alone for awhile but I am hoping to write another vignette along this tone for each of the steps in the Most Excellent Plan. Thanks for reading!)


	2. Step One: The Willow Whomps

**Chapter Two**

**Step One: The Willow Whomps**

"This is never going to work."

It was Peter who had spoken. He and Sirius were in human form, looking at Prongs. Prongs was standing with his head down against the entrance to the tunnel under the Willow, his antlers blocking him from moving forward.

Sirius studied the problem, tugging slightly on the ends of his hair, as was his habit when vexed. "We might be able to put a Shrinking Charm on him? Carry him in a pocket?"

James transformed. "Firstly, I am never under any circumstances riding in your pocket, I know what kind of things you keep in there and how often you wash your clothes. Secondly, you won't _have_ a pocket, you great idiot. You'll be a dog."

"You could widen the tunnel with your antlers?" Peter suggested.

"And bring the tree down?" James objected. "I think the teachers would notice that, Wormtail."

"Not to mention the four of us at the castle gates the next morning because we couldn't get back in," Sirius said absently. He was still considering the ramifications of placing a Shrinking Charm on James. Not only would it get him through the tunnel and back, but James would never be able to live down having been pocket-sized. If he was pocket-sized Prongs and tried to transform, would he then be pocket-sized James? Sirius could keep him in a cage and feed him crackers until James agreed to proclaim Sirius the Manliest, Handsomest Gryffindor Of Them All.

"How did we not think of this?" James said, tone full of frustration.

Sirius snapped out of daydreaming about what was, he realized, basically turning his best friend into a parakeet. "How did _you_ not think of it?" he retorted. "They're your bloody antlers."

Peter then coughed up one of those pearls of wisdom he occasionally produced without seeming to realize he had said anything particularly profound. "I think we were all so worried about the wolf at the end of the tunnel that we forgot to worry about the tunnel."

They all looked silently at the tunnel entrance. It looked like such an innocent little hole in the ground.

"You go, Pads," James said, his tone dangerously close to a whine. He always whined when an idea he had declared to be brilliant turned out not to be. "Go on a bit and see if it gets too narrow for you."

This was one suggestion Sirius was happy to follow. He liked being a dog. Admittedly, having four feet had been confusing at first. Peter and James had laughed until tears poured down their faces the first time Sirius transformed. Sirius had bitten James in retaliation, but refrained from biting Peter after he found out what biting James tasted like. Now, however, Padfoot's legs worked naturally, and he could run and dig and the smells were _amazing_, and being a dog just generally felt different. Happier. Sirius suspected dogs were always happier.

The tunnel was no problem as Padfoot. Sirius was just beginning to wonder how far he ought to go before turning back, when he heard a cry of pain that was distinctly James Potter-ish.

Sirius whipped around and raced for the entrance. When he poked his head out of the tunnel, he was immediately almost decapitated by something. Yanking his head back, he peered out and confirmed his suspicion that the tree had come back to life. Peter was desperately trying to dodge the branches, looking like he was performing some kind of insane dance step, and James was twenty feet away on his back.

Sirius pawed the knot, and the tree froze instantly. Sirius transformed back into human form and ran over to James.

"Ow, ow, ow, my tailbone," James was groaning, but he was getting up on his own, so at least all his parts were still working. "Peter!" he roared.

"I didn't know it would wear off so fast!"

"The tree's your job, dimwit!" Groaning and clutching his stomach where the tree had presumably whacked him, James limped back to the entrance.

"Prongs is a no-go and the tree is kicking our butts," Peter said, his eyebrows knitted together. "Are you guys sure we're ready? We haven't even reached the wolf yet and we're stuck."

Sirius knew instantly from the look on James' face that they were in agreement: no way in hell were they backing out now. They were expected. "You wanna explain it to Remus tomorrow?" James asked Peter. "That after all this, we stood him up because of some big antlers and a _tree_?"

Peter studied the ground. James studied the entrance. Sirius studied James. "I'll go through as human," James declared.

"Bad idea, mate," Sirius said instantly.

"No, it's fine. You two go through first. Remus said the tunnel opens out on the bottom floor of the Shack. You go and get the wolf away from the entrance. Pete will let me know when I can get through ok, and then I'll transform."

Sirius met James' eyes, and could see his own thought reflected in them: that if the wolf smelled him, even for an instant, they might have their first experience of werewolf aggression a lot sooner than they had hoped.

But what did that mean? As long as he was a dog the worst that could happen to him was being beaten up, and he would rather get beat up than explain to Moony tomorrow how he was too chicken to go through with their plans. "Well, men, what are we waiting for? Pete, hit the knot again, just to be sure. The moon's been up an hour already."

* * *

><p>The trapdoor at the end of the tunnel had a latch on it. It would have been impossible to open if they had all been in their animal shapes; but after watching Padfoot ineffectually nudge the lock with his nose for a minute, James hissed, "Oh, for heaven's sake," and came forward. Human fingers conquered the latch in seconds. He would have pushed the door open, but Sirius turned and growled at him. James retreated farther down the tunnel.<p>

With a bit of a running start, Padfoot put his shoulder into the door and it fell open. Sirius charged into the Shack without hesitating. Peter followed more slowly, his tiny rodent heart thumping so fast that it wasn't thumping at all, just humming. He had half-expected the wolf to confront them the moment they intruded on its sanctuary, but there was no sign of him. Just a room full of damaged furniture.

Sirius glanced over his shoulder at Peter, then moved through an open doorway into another room. Peter trailed behind him, keeping to the walls, nervously looking around for loose floorboards and gaps between furniture and walls where paws wouldn't reach.

He was far enough behind Sirius that the wolf didn't notice him. When Peter entered the second room, he found Sirius and the wolf facing each other, both of them completely still. Predator still. As still as Peter had ever seen living creatures be.

There was a split second in which Peter's tiny rodent heart stopped.

The wolf made a noise. It was somewhere between a bark and a yip; it was the kind of noise a dog might make when a member of its human family came home for the day. Sirius dropped into what Peter had heard called a play bow, tail in the air and forelegs on the ground. He wondered vaguely if it was doggy instincts kicking in or if Sirius had studied the language of canines on purpose. At any rate, the wolf accepted the invitation and leapt forward. Even through a haze of receding fear, Peter could tell that what followed was a romp, the canine equivalent of a hug and a thump on the back, and not a fight.

It was no time at all before Sirius had gotten the wolf to chase him up the stairs. Peter went back to the tunnel. His vision as a rat was more blurry, but he still thought James looked very tense and pale as he waited. They hadn't thought to agree on a signal, but Peter chittered at James and he seemed to get the idea. James pulled himself through the trapdoor, then transformed into Prongs so quickly that one of his legs slipped. There was some very graceless stag floundering, resulting in Peter leaping to James' right antler and hanging on for dear life to keep from being trampled. James' realization that Peter was on his head led to another round of graceless stag floundering.

Just as James seemed to be becoming resigned to the fact that no amount of shaking his head was going to get Peter to dislodge himself from the relative safety of his antler, Sirius and the wolf came bounding back down the stairs. Sirius jumped playfully onto the wolf's back, and the canines slid down the last five steps at top speed and straight into James' legs.

Peter tightened his grip as James yet again struggled to his feet, seeming to take as much care to step on Sirius as he was taking care not to step on the wolf. _Poor Prongs,_ Peter thought. _Maybe his antlers aren't going to be the safest place after all._

* * *

><p>The three exhausted Marauders trudged away from the Willow, bound rather tightly to each other by the Invisibility Cloak.<p>

"...I want a picture of you belly up and tail wagging," James muttered.

"It's like saying _uncle_ in dog language, you, you... I want a picture of you in a heap of limbs on the floor. How many times was it? Ten? Ten thousand?"

"Guys," Peter tried, "we should move faster away from the-"

"If certain canines had not made a game of running between my legs, certain _other_ events would not have occurred."

"Like you falling."

"Guys," Peter tried again, "the-"

"Yes, like me falling! I want a picture showing the two of you treating me like an obstacle course!"

"I want a picture of you wearing Pettigrew like a hat."

"Guys-"

WHAM! The three Marauders were taken down with a single branch and tossed an impressive distance from the tree. The Cloak tore a little.

"PETER!" two voices howled in unison.

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!"

* * *

><p>Forty-five minutes later, the three of them sat at the Gryffindor table. Peter was eating, but the other two were just toying with their food; all three of them were staring at the entrance.<p>

"What if Madame Pomfrey found out what we did?" Peter whispered.

"What if he hurt himself after we left?" James said.

Sirius broke a piece of bacon up into infinitesimally small pieces, without looking away from the entrance, then said what they were all really thinking. "What if he doesn't remember?"

Peter took a bite of toast. James swirled his pumpkin juice, and Sirius started destroying another piece of bacon.

Remus walked through the entrance, stopping to look for them. James halfway stood and raised his hand. Remus turned toward them. His face was lit up like a man who'd won the lottery, or a lover whose proposal had been accepted, or a child who'd just had ten Christmases at once. Like someone who had just

had the most wonderful thing that could happen to them, personally, come true.

"He remembers," Sirius said.

_step one concluded_

* * *

><p><em>(AN: In PoA, Hermione and Harry at the age of 13 are described as bending nearly double to get through the tunnel. I have never been able to conceive of Prongs getting in any way but this, and I think it exemplifies both the absolute trust James has in Sirius and the extreme level of risk that those two were comfortable with. Step two coming soon!)_


	3. Step Two: Enter Peter Pettigrew

**Step Two: Enter Peter Pettigrew**

_(A/N: As the plan was described by James, three of the seven steps focused specifically on one of the conspirators. For these steps, I will be writing several short vignettes focusing on that character. The scenes are not necessarily in order and do not occur in chronological context with the other chapters. _

_Because of the nature of Peter's character, this chapter wound up coming out a little more serious than the preceding chapters)._

* * *

><p>Every plan needs a rat. And Peter knows it's always going to be him. He's known the stink jobs would be his ever since Sirius and James first started talking to him way back in first year, with Remus hovering and smiling in the background in a way that let Peter know it wasn't even James and Sirius' idea to include him. He knows he's only clinging to the edges of the cool kids' group, and so he knows whenever they need a scapegoat or a villain it's going to be him.<p>

So Peter volunteers to be a rat before he can be told. When James and Sirius are hashing out the plan and they start talking about getting past the Willow, Peter suggests that he can turn into something small and fast that can dart forward and clear the path for the other two. That way, Peter can do his part without getting in James and Sirius' way.

He doesn't tell them, but the plan frightens him. Not because of the wolf, but because Remus is the kind one. With him not present (so to speak), James and Sirius' tempers can't be trusted. But after the first few months, Peter's fear fades. By the time James and Sirius are human again and can talk, they are so full of things they want to say about themselves and each other that they spare little attention for Peter's doings. At first this is a relief. At first.

* * *

><p>One night, Peter is not the only rat at the Shack.<p>

He is surprised to discover another male rat and four females that have taken up residence in one of the Shack's bedrooms. The male thinks Peter wants his harem and charges at him. Peter squeaks and runs to Sirius, who is closest. Sirius is also the best suited for chasing rats, were he so inclined, but Sirius just flops onto his back and rolls around in a way that lets Peter know Sirius would kill to be able to transform right now, just so he could laugh. The wolf, however, considers Sirius' action an invitation for a tussle and jumps on him. Peter is nearly crushed several times over before he can get free of the two of them.

He knows he smells of wolf and dog now, so he presents himself to the other rats, and they flee into the night.

"Thank goodness the ladies didn't decide to leave their man for you," Remus says the next day. "Imagine trying to fend off four amorous rats."

The others burst out laughing at the expression on Peter's face. No one calls him anything but Rat King or Monsieur Love until another full moon and another set of adventures wipes the incident from their minds.

* * *

><p>There are some unexpected benefits to being a rat. Peter's new favorite thing to say is, "All clear." He feels a sense of pride when he comes back from scouting out the scene of the gang's next prank. The rat is a very inconspicious lookout, and has greater mobility than someone hiding in the Invisibility Cloak. He does get spotted once or twice and endure shrieks and bombardment. Once a girl throws her gobstones at him when she sees a rat skulking along the wall and it breaks Peter's little rodent toes. James reveals an unexpected talent for healing and fixes him up without them having to think up a lie for Madame Pomfrey, and Peter gets to experience the dignity of having been wounded for the cause. Even Sirius is nicer to him for awhile.<p>

Soon Peter has been to areas of the castle the others can only dream about. He sits on his bed and exalts in the way the other three pay attention to him, the envy in their eyes. "You _rat_," James says whenever Peter tells them something particularly juicy. He says it with pride and affection, and Peter beams.

* * *

><p>Peter likes sitting on James' antlers. He feels safe from careless paws up there, and the view is excellent. James does not particularly care for the arrangement, and that's also part of what Peter likes about it: being able to pull something over on James.<p>

The first time James lowered those antlers to confront an angry werewolf, Peter ran as fast as he'd ever run in his life. Over James' back, leaping to the floor and diving beneath the bookcase to hide in a quivering mass, his rodent heart humming in terror.

But the next full moon, Peter is back riding on the antlers. He learns to judge the exact moment when the situation becomes unsafe. Soon when the wolf's hair stands on end and he makes that soft noise that comes before a growl, Peter's dash away from danger is as practiced as James and Sirius' dash towards it.

Many years later, the first time Peter passes information to a Death Eater, memories of the Shrieking Shack unexpectedly fill his mind. The way it smelled to a rat, the noise that came just before the wolf's snarl; the moment he and James both saw danger, and leaped in opposite directions.

* * *

><p>The worst thing about the Cat Incident is James and Sirius recreating it for Remus the next day.<p>

"So he's just touched the knot-"

"I was already Padfoot, getting ready to go down the tunnel, and then out of nowhere-"

"This tiny little thing with long silver hair-"

"You could have picked it up in one hand."

"And then," James says, pink with mirth, "it runs _right at him-_"

"And the idiot tries to climb the tree! So of course the cat goes up the tree too."

James and Sirius mime racing up a tree, badly. Peter can't tell which of them is supposed to be him and which is supposed to be the cat. Remus bites his lip, trying not to laugh.

"Then he falls-"

"And it's a _long_ fall for a rat," Peter puts in longsufferingly.

"And races, if you please, _up_ my leg and to my shoulder-" James gives a theatrical shudder.

Sirius jumps in eagerly. "And James says, 'you great bloody idiot, you can transform, you know!' So he does."

"On my shoulder." James mimes collapsing, and Remus gives up trying not to laugh.

"The rat has instincts," Peter mutters. "I was scared."

"It was the _size of my hand_," Sirius emphasizes. "Padfoot could have _eaten _it."

"It was much bigger than Peter, though," Remus says placatingly.

_Yes_, Peter thinks, _that's the problem in a nutshell. Things that are tiny to Sirius are huge to me._

* * *

><p>There is a flaw in the Marauders' Most Excellent Plan. Peter has trouble believing his friends haven't spotted it. His two brilliant, daring friends, who thought the whole plan up from scratch, who are brave enough to spend their nights with a werewolf and loyal enough to want to. How could Peter see something they don't see?<p>

Every full moon Peter races ahead of them, using all his agility and speed to weave between the branches of the Willow and touch the knot. Every full moon he prays they don't realize the flaw. When Remus came down to the tree earlier this same evening, he did not have Peter Pettigrew with him, and he got into the tunnel. He used a long branch to touch the knot, the same long branch that Madame Pomfrey will use when she comes looking for him in the morning. Peter can talk as much as he wants about how every plan needs a rat, but in this case it's a lie. James and Sirius could get by on their own if they wanted to.

Is it possible they know, and pretend not to know out of kindness?

No. James and Sirius would not have created an entire extra step in the plan just to make Peter feel useful. That's the kind of thing Remus does, and Peter knows for certain that Remus didn't have any input on this plan. He must be getting to the other two. They must believe they need Peter.

He wishes he believed it too.


	4. Step Three: A Rollicking Good Time

**Step Three: A Rollicking Good Time **

Saturday morning, the day after the third full moon of the Marauders' Most Excellent Plan, found the dorm room of the Gryffindor fifth year boys turned into a war zone. The four inhabitants each sat on their own beds, kings of their own territories, looking warily at the other three as though expecting an invasion. They were sleepless, breakfastless, and-according to Remus-hopeless and reckless as well.

"The first thing I thought was, how am I going to keep them out of trouble? And then I thought, surely-"

"First thing you thought was your friends are amazing," Sirius interrupted, emphasizing his words with a glare that would have killed lesser men on the spot.

"Fine." Remus, heavily armored with righteous indignation, was not subdued. "The _second_ thing I thought when you told me about this plan was, how will I keep them out of trouble? How will I stop them from running away with themselves when _I_ am not, in fact, _my_self? Could _they_ possibly run away with _me_?"

"You sound like a teacher," James said. This statement was typically a warning; Remus understood it as such, and normally he would stop moralizing (or at least get less obvious about it) whenever James issued this heads-up that he was losing patience.

Today, however, Remus' three dearest friends had led the wolf out of the Shack, thumbing their noses at every safety restriction that had permitted Remus to come to Hogwarts in the first place. Remus was in no mood to heed friendly warnings. "And then I thought: no, my friends aren't crazy. Yes, they're adventurous, yes, they may occasionally leap before they look, but-"

"Like how Padfoot turfed it down that big hill last night, am I right?" Peter said hopefully. But no one laughed, Sirius barely bothered to send him a dirty look, and Remus continued undeterred. _Well_, Peter thought_, gave it my best shot._

"But they know their own limits. They know better than to get us into a genuinely dangerous situation."

"Damn straight," James said, thoroughly annoyed that calling Remus a teacher hadn't worked. "We _do_ know our limits, and we haven't gotten anywhere near them."

"Here, here!" Sirius said loudly.

"You can't control a werewolf," Remus said despairingly. "Someone could get _hurt_. I don't mean a trip to the hospital wing, I mean-"

Sirius raised a hand, as though in class. "I'm going to cut you off right there, because I object to your thesis. I can too control a werewolf."

"You were literally following him in loop-de-loops around Prongs' legs," Peter said with a grin.

"Yes, I _know_, but if I were to become upset-"

"James! Go back over the plan, he's forgotten steps four and five." Sirius kept talking without pause, earning an exasperated look from James. "I did _not_ learn how to turn into the biggest damn dog in existence so that you and I could play fetch together, and James did _not_ create those antlers to give Peter a spot to rest his lazy ass."

"All I am saying is that we ought to be _inside_ the Shrieking Shack, not outside, the first time we find out how well this plan actually works."

James saw his chance. The stuff that normally calmed Remus down was failing miserably; it looked like this might be the time Remus actually stood up to him and Sirius, and James didn't want to go there. So he tried a different tactic. "Actually, that _isn't_ all you're saying," James said, forcing an expression of pleasant surprise. "You know what I just noticed? You _remember_ all this. Nobody had to tell you what went on last night, you just knew."

Of course the other three had all noticed this immediately, because it had ruined their plans to hold off telling Remus about their excursion until they could figure out a good way to do it. Remus, however, looked as though he hadn't really made this realization yet. "You definitely remember more than the first two times. Why's that?" James asked innocently.

"I... I don't really know." Peter looked up hopefully at the change in Remus' tone. "I... suppose it's possible that whatever... effects... your presence has on me could take awhile to make themselves known..."

Remus sounded completely disarmed. James shot Sirius a look, one that said _keep this going_ more clearly than words could have. "You really mean you haven't noticed?" Sirius said, a touch of derision in his voice as he flopped back onto his bed, looking up at the ceiling. James experienced a pang of envy at Sirius' ability to sound completely genuine when he was being manipulative. James was good at it, yes, but Sirius was a master. "I mean, it's not just the memory thing. Pay attention to yourself some time. Here you are, wide awake and alert without a scratch or bruise on you. People aren't going to know who you are anymore if you don't go back to looking half dead half the time."

"I..." Remus didn't finish his sentence, and Sirius risked a quick grin at James.

"And it's going to get even better," James said. "I mean, this is only three months' worth. Who knows what kind of a good influence hanging out with three upstanding Animagi is going to turn out to be?"

Remus' face clearly expressed his desire to start lecturing them again. But he couldn't muster any more anger, and ended up giving an exasperated sigh that made the others grin. They knew it was the end of the fight. "All right," Remus conceded. "You're the best, I'm sorry for being so upset, etcetera, etcetera. I just... If any of you knew the level of precaution I used to live with, the way my parents handled it at home..."

"Yeah, but your parents are crazy," Sirius put in. "Trust me, as a fellow sufferer, I recognize the signs. Paranoia, difficulty trusting, skewed views of the world."

"You're too kind," Remus murmured.

"Don't mention it. We sufferers of crazy parents must stick together. You know what you need, Remus? You need to do some trust exercises."

"Like what?" James asked, intrigued.

Peter piped up. "Muggles do this thing they call trust falls where they climb on a piece of furniture and then fall off and their friends catch them. Or something like that."

A gleam appeared in James' eyes, and jumped from there to Sirius' eyes in a fraction of a second. Remus felt a panicky urge to throttle Peter, but he knew it was too late. "No," he said, as firmly as he could.

"From the _furniture?_ Maybe that's how _Muggles_ do it," James said scornfully.

"_No_."

"Pitiful, how they try to get along without magic," Sirius agreed. "I'd say at _least_ from the balustrades."

"I said no..."

"Balustrades, Padfoot?" James said, with an air of disappointment. "When we have here before us the two best fliers Hogwarts has ever seen? Fetch the brooms, my good man."

"Does anyone care that I've said no?"

"Better give it up," Peter said sympathetically. "When James starts saying 'my good man,' they're past the point of no return."

"You're doing it too, Wormtail," Sirius said. "Let no man sleep in this dorm without he hath proved his faith in his comrades."

"This is your fault," Remus told the suddenly pale Peter. "You're the one who said trust falls."

"And a good suggestion it was," Sirius said, undeterred. "Nothing says friendship like jumping off a broom at fifty feet! Right, Prongs?"

"To friendship! To trust! To Gryffindor daring-do!"

"To the hospital wing," Peter muttered glumly.

* * *

><p>Remus was not surprised when Sirius and James selected him to go first. He was a little surprised when he agreed.<p>

_My brain is being affected by sleep deprivation and mob mentality, _he informed himself in a curiously calm mental tone as he gained altitude over the Quidditch pitch. James and Sirius were already circling below him like some inverted kind of carrion birds. _I feel grateful to my friends and so I allow them to pressure me into situations I would normally avoid. _

Remus couldn't remember the last time he'd been this high on a broom. It was possible he never had been. He could feel wind in his hair, he could see the entirety of the grounds, and he had to admit it was kind of amazing. Another, more honest mental voice joined the conversation: _You would normally avoid these situations, and you would miss out on everything that makes your life enjoyable. You do it because you trust them, not because you want to fit in. And, if you can bear to admit to yourself, you knew what was happening last night and you went along with it._

Peter was clearly visible on the ground, clutching his wand. It had been James and Sirius' idea for one person to stay on the ground, ready to save the day with a spell in case something went awry. It was a precaution that Remus wouldn't have expected of them, one they never would have taken in the past. Was it possible they were getting just a tad more responsible?

"Any time now," James called up to him, sounding mildly annoyed. Sirius also called something, but the wind grabbed most of it and all Remus could make out was his nickname, Moony.

_This is insane,_ the calm voice informed him. _You might want to just land the broom and hide for the rest of the day._

Remus was getting better and better at ignoring that voice. But just in case further exposure to it would wear him down, he decided not to wait. He released the broom handle, and let himself fall.

There was an exhilarating, utterly terrifying moment of free fall. He couldn't breathe and could barely see from the wind stinging his eyes. Then came a painful jolt, in which more parts of his anatomy than he thought possible got bruised and his robes stopped moving before his body did, causing them to leave deep red indentations around his neck. Then Sirius' voice, torn between exasperation and something fiercer that Remus couldn't name. "And that is how I will always catch you, you stupid, paranoid, ignoramus werewolf."

"Ow."

"Complaints, complaints."

Peter was cheering. Sirius did a victory lap before flying Remus back down to the ground, while James chased after Remus' broomstick. Then Remus took up the safecheck position on the ground while Peter was coaxed into the air. After many, many reassurances that James and Sirius were "right below you, damn it," and were "very accustomed to catching Quidditch balls a damn sight smaller than you, you idiot," Peter finally jumped from his own broom to James'. He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself, but nonetheless grateful to be returned to the ground for the rest of it. Remus dutifully flew up with the other two, but they all knew without it being said that no one but Sirius or James should be attempting the catches. James went first, with absolutely no sign of fear, screaming some kind of war cry as he jumped. Sirius complained loudly that James had deliberately pulled his hair while being caught. Then Sirius irritated James by flying higher than anyone else had before jumping. As soon as James had caught him he demanded a second go.

It was as James was getting ready for his second try, looking like he was going to fly halfway to the sun, that Madame Hooch came running onto the field, screeching and threatening a lifetime's worth of detentions if they did not cease and desist this instant. Remus noticed that, in another sign of increasing responsibility, Sirius didn't make any snide responses or do anything else to break his concentration until James had flown lower than him and it was clear Sirius didn't need to catch him.

Unaffected by Madame Hooch's lecture, the elated Marauders trooped back into the castle and were the first to take their seats at the lunch table, having been awake and unfed since dinner the night before. They found themselves the subject of much admiration as the tale of their antics on the Quidditch pitch spread, and each gloried in it in their own way.

That night as they were finally getting ready for bed, James glanced at Remus and said, "Same plan next month?"

Remus spread his hands in a gesture of acquiescence. "Same plan next month."

"Good on you, Moony," Sirius said drowsily, already under his covers.

"Just catch me more gently next time, will you?"

"Whatever. I'll have you prancing in circles," Sirius said with a yawn.

Remus crawled into bed. "Has it occurred to you yet that _I_ might be leading _you_ in circles?"

"Pshaw. The wolf loves me."

"Or you love the wolf."

"Clearly you aren't remembering things as well as we thought you-"

"GOODNIGHT, YOU TWO STUPID CANINES_," _James said loudly, putting out all the lights in the room with a flick of his wand.

"Goodnight, oh be-antlered one."

"Goodnight, ratface."

"Goodnight, lunatic."

"Goodnight, Lord of the Fleas."

"GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY NOW SHUT UP OR THE NEXT PERSON TO SPEAK GETS HEXED."


	5. Step Four: The Noble Prongs

**Step Four: The Noble Prongs**

_A/N: As with Peter's chapter, this is a character chapter which contains vignettes pertinent to James' character, not necessarily in chronological order or connected to the previous chapter. I had a bit of a hard time connecting with James' character until I decided to tie the vignettes together with some reflections on James' rack. ;)_

* * *

><p>The prongs for which Prongs got his nickname are without doubt the biggest bloody nuisance of James' entire life.<p>

He made them this size on purpose. They are meant to fend off a werewolf, after all. And, if he's being honest, he wants to look impressive. Was it wrong to assume the stag's instincts would allow him to manage the things without incident? Admittedly, that's proved true most of the time; but he seems to keep running into these minor complications with his new body. Complications that don't seem to be happening to Sirius and Peter.

Actually, Peter _is_ one of the complications. Of all the many things James had in mind when he made this form, carrying Peter around on his head was not one of them. And it doesn't matter what he says or does, what threats he makes or how creatively he carries them out, the next full moon finds Peter treating him like his own personal sedan chair.

It's not like it gives James a headache or anything; Peter is so light James sometimes forgets he's up there. It's the principle of the thing. The dignity of the ever so noble Prongs is shot to pieces by the presence a rat grooming itself on his antlers. James has asked Peter to stop, and that ought to be that.

So one night, when James realizes that Peter is _yet again _getting ready to leap up onto his back, James stomps hard on the floor next to him, expressing his displeasure as strongly as he can without being able to speak. But either James misjudges the distance or Peter moves at exactly the wrong moment, because James' left forefoot comes down on Peter's tail. Peter flees into the tunnel, squealing with pain. When he doesn't come back, James leaves Sirius with the wolf and goes hunting.

Peter isn't in the tunnel, or on the grounds, and James is starting to feel a little panicked by the time he gets back to Gryffindor Tower and finds Peter in his bed, crying. James says sorry and manages to calm him down enough to convince him to transform, so James can fix his tail. After saying sorry a few more times, James' exasperation gets the better of him. "Peter, you _know_ I've told you a million times not to do that! I was just trying to make you stop. Why do you keep getting up there when you know it pisses me off?"

"Because it's the only safe place when you all start running around," Peter sniffs. "I'm little. I can't keep up and you three don't wait. And you're not always looking where you step, at least the wolf doesn't, and I'm scared of being stepped on. I guess it's ironic... being scared of it and trying to keep it from happening was what made it happen."

After that, James doesn't say anything to Peter about the antler habit. It stills makes him mad. But his sense of justice tells him it isn't fair that Peter is small and the three of them are large, nor is it fair that they don't make any accommodation for him. He understands why Peter is scared. He wishes Peter would deal with it some other way than making it James' problem.

(He wonders, sometimes, if Peter really ought to have been a Gryffindor.)

* * *

><p>The antler problem which proves to be the longest lived begins (as so many of James' problems do) with a suggestion from Sirius.<p>

The December full moon of their fifth year falls during Christmas break. Though attempts to plot are made, ultimately the Marauders have to give up on the idea of rescuing Remus from his parents' house that night. As a cheerful suggestion that they are with him in spirit, Sirius somehow manages to convince James to hold still in animal form while Sirius hangs more than a dozen brightly colored ornaments from his antlers. Peter is there too, holding a piece of mistletoe (James objected vigorously to this, as Peter is on his head, but he has to bow to the inevitability of there being nothing else small enough for Peter to hold). Sirius sets the timer on the camera, joins the tableau as Padfoot with an enormous candy cane in his mouth, and the resultant picture is sent to Remus as a Christmas present.

James should have known better. Due to the cheerfully long memories of his nearest and dearest, Prongs narrowly escapes decoration on several subsequent occasions as well: Gryffindor banners for the end of term, sparklers for Bonfire Night, pink crepe paper on Valentine's Day (this last his friends attempt to apply to his human form, also. Apparently they are sick of hearing about Lily).

It is not until after he is married that the full impact of the picture (and the maliciousness of his kind friend Remus, in whose custody the picture has remained until now) comes to light. The first Christmas after his marriage, he finds the picture innocently propped up on the mantle, Peter's photographic image vigorously waving the mistletoe while Sirius winks roguishly. James realizes with sudden clarity that no good deed goes unpunished, and that he will never, for the rest of his life, be free from the threat of adornment.

* * *

><p>The Great Antler Incident of '76 begins innocently enough. The Marauders were exploring the Forbidden Forest one full moon, each trying to outdo each other with their bravado and disregard for any potential danger. James, hearing a noise that apparently no one else could hear, gives a nervous jump sideways and receives withering looks from all of his companions. He attempts to rejoin the group with dignity, only to discover that the tip of one antler has become entangled in the sweeping branches of a nearby weeping willow.<p>

Disentanglement is much more difficult than anticipated. Sensing the others' amusement and frustrated with it, wanting to have done with the whole thing quickly, James perhaps does not take as much care with his movements as he should. The result is that, in less than two minutes, he has gone from having one branch caught on the tip of one point to having both antlers so entangled he can no longer move his head.

He has to stand there more or less motionless while he waits for the others to get over themselves enough to help him. Sirius and the wolf are both flopping around on the ground, grinning and tails wagging. They manage to give the impression of hopeless, hysterical laughter without actually making a sound. James gives Sirius up as a lost cause and focuses his efforts on Peter, gesturing at him with one foreleg and trying somehow to communicate that this is the one and only time Peter actually _should_ get on top of his head. He could put those teeth to good use, instead of sitting there making that high-pitched squeaking noise. But Peter either does not understand him or pretends not to. James is reduced to plotting the various things he's going to hide in their beds as retribution while he stands there, abandoned by friends and immobilized by a tree.

It is the wolf who finally approaches him. James, who had been trying to point to Peter again with his foreleg, stills immediately. There's no sign of trouble, none of the changes in demeanor or appearance the wolf goes through when it's caught a human scent, but neither does it look amused now. It looks focused, and James is not 100% sure how he feels about a focused werewolf coming towards him while he is unable to get away.

He does his best to show nothing but calm outwardly. He holds still as the wolf goes up to his flank and puts its forepaws on his back. There is the sound of teeth snapping above his head, a little growling and tugging, the wolf's paws digging into him for purchase. He thinks he feels a claw break skin. He thinks it's accidental.

Then the tension of the willow branches pulling at his head is gone, and the wolf drops down to all fours next to him. It gives James a very knowing, amused look, as if to say _I know how scared you were, _and it trots off.

_How much of you is in there, Remus_? James wonders through the rest of the night. He knows by now that it is dangerous to think of the wolf as his friend, to forget the capacity for violence that it has. Yet who ever heard of a werewolf who wanders free under the full moon and willingly takes direction from Animagi, who saves stags entangled in vegetation and then looks at them as if to share a joke?

It was exactly the sort of look Remus would have given him.

The next day Remus remembers everything, but that doesn't stop Peter and Sirius from enjoying themselves by recounting the whole event anyway. "He had this _what the hell_ look on his face," Peter jeers.

"It's a good thing you stopped thrashing around and held still. You don't want to trigger a predator's instincts." Remus has a little half-smile that makes James think Remus is messing with him, but he's not positive.

"To hell with instincts," Sirius declares. "It's obvious James doesn't have any. If he did he would be able to vanquish a _tree_. A regular non-magical tree that does not bite or whomp or do anything but _stand_ there."

Remus looks thoughtful. "First Prongs can't get through the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Now this. It's strange, James, but you are the only person I have ever met who is more competent against werewolves than willows."

The nickname Willow Warrior follows James for the rest of term.

* * *

><p>Not being able to fit through the tunnel is a bit of a sore spot for James. He feels stupid for not thinking of it, with all the time and effort they put into their planning. For the first few months he is silent while they traverse the tunnel, feeling both ashamed and afraid to be in his human body while they are this close to the wolf.<p>

Familiarity dulls both emotions, though, and soon James discovers a new game: teasing Sirius while James can speak and Sirius can't. Sirius never takes the bait, even though it would be so easy for him to transform back into human form just for an instant to make some sort of retort. James knows he's irritating Sirius, because Padfoot's hackles go up. But so far Sirius is winning the impromptu games, because he never gives in and transforms in order to respond, no matter how far James pushes it.

There's never been any boundaries between them, so James pushes. And pushes, and enjoys the game even though he's losing, until one day in April of fifth year when he happens to think of it while they're both studying in the library. He speaks to Sirius about the game for the first time. "Can't you even answer me once?"

"Come off it. You'd win."

James looks in Sirius in surprise. Yes, his words were what James expected, but James and Sirius have been friends long enough for James to know when Sirius isn't being entirely truthful. "Really? Is that all?"

Sirius shrugs. "Well, yeah. Also, wicked unsafe. Have you seen the claw marks on the other side of the door? The wolf could open it and get in the tunnel if he were, well, motivated. Seconds count, my friend."

"He told you that?"

"Naw, saw the claw marks, figured it out, like I said. And we're about the same size, so if I can get through the tunnel he can. It's not as safe as Dumbledore and everyone thought, not if there were some reason he really wanted to get into the tunnel. Good thing we're picking up their slack."

Sirius sounds so casual about it all, which alerts James to how serious it really is. He is stunned to think that Sirius has been more careful about the whole thing than he has; that Sirius has been enduring relentless teasing from James not in order to pit his will against James', but in order to shave a few seconds off the time it might take him to respond to a threat to James' life.

James honestly doesn't care if people call him immature. But if Sirius says he is it counts; and this is so much worse because Sirius didn't _say_ anything, he just _did_ something that made James feel so damned immature he might as well pack his bags and go back home to his mother. Has he been treating it all too much like a game? Has he put the others in danger?

When did Sirius grow up without him?

James studies Sirius for the rest of that term, taking note of the way he blends the fun stuff and the important stuff together, and copies it. And then something odd happens. Sirius _stops, _somehow, in some indefinable way, and James doesn't. Even though James has been copying Sirius, Sirius has stopped growing and James has become much better at it, whatever _it_ is.

James doesn't realize how much better until the day he's racing along the tunnel with no Padfoot in sight, with a wolf who is very keenly motivated to get into the tunnel, trying to save a man he hates.

He never blames Sirius for crossing the line that night. He knows how hard it can be to find where the line is between play and not-play, acceptable and not, what with all the rules they've already broken and all the games the wolf and Padfoot enjoy. Lines get erased and redrawn and none of _them_ have ever gotten hurt, so maybe he didn't think anyone would. Or maybe he did; maybe he _meant_ for Snape to die. No one knows because no one's talking. Remus likes to act as though it never happened, and so that's what they all do; if Remus forgives him, Peter and James can hardly do anything but follow suit.

All the same, James monitors the Marauders' Most Excellent Plan much more carefully after that night. He feels no longer jointly responsible for its success, but solely. Remus and Peter also act like James is in charge now, rather than James and Sirius. It's subtle, and certainly no one says anything, but James knows the unspoken change in the group dynamic is a more effective censure than anything else could have been. There won't be a second time.

James is surprised to find he likes being actually responsible. Not just being popular or in the thick of things, but genuinely answerable for other people's lives and wellbeing. Being a leader. He fancies himself like the stag king of old, but not in an egotistical way. He knows the stag king dies each autumn to nourish his people, and does so gladly. James would die to protect his friends. He would even die to protect them from each other, or their own mistakes. He would do it gladly. He wonders if he would have known this about himself, or even felt this way, if he hadn't happened to make this particular group of friends. If he hadn't ever run under the moonlight with a werewolf, trusting his life to his magic and his friend's paws.

When James gets Head Boy seventh year, he wonders how much Dumbledore knows.

* * *

><p><em>(AN) Stay tuned for Sirius' character chapter next!)_


	6. Step Five: The Marauders' Secret Weapon

**Step Five: The Marauders' Secret Weapon**

_A/N:Two scenes of Sirius: one silly, one rather serious, both sweet. I had the first part of this written from long enough ago that I think the whole story started with this, for me. Sirius only wound up with two vignettes because they turned out long. _

_This is the last of the character chapters; as before, these scenes are not necessarily in chronological order or connected to previous chapters._

* * *

><p>After becoming a dog, Sirius' relationship with Remus gets a lot more physical.<p>

After all, when your team consists of a dog, a stag, and a rat, the stag is prey(for all his fancy antlers and high opinion of himself), and the rat nothing more than a light snack. That's why Sirius decided to be a dog in the first place, because he saw a need for someone who could get close. To guide when guidance is called for, and contain when containment is called for. But maybe he knew something else on a subconscious level: far more than Remus needs yet another safeguard or protection, Remus needs someone to play with.

Every night, from moonup to moondown, the wolf plays with the dog. It surprised them all a bit at first, but soon it became expected. He tackles Sirius when Sirius isn't even expecting it-Sirius will just be innocently making his way from one room to another, maybe trying to catch James' eye or figure out what time it is, and then he'll find himself in a heap on the floor with wolf all over him. He gets chased and pinned in mock fights. At first Sirius would let the wolf win, but after a few months familiarity overcame fear and pride began to sting, so now he fights back. The wolf still wins most times. There are also long games of tag and tug of war, not to mention the shoulder-thumping and tail-wagging and nips of greeting (oh yes, Sirius has been bitten by a werewolf, and after the first half dozen times even Peter doesn't get anxious when it happens anymore).

The wolf wears Sirius straight the hell out. Sometimes Sirius only makes it to and from classes the next day by the benefit of James' shoulder under his, and James' whispered reminders that if Sirius acts exhausted the day after the full moon, the teachers will put two and two together.

Once, when Sirius is completely punchdrunk and Remus is looking guilty, James remarks, "You know, Padfoot, you're kind of like the wolf's chewtoy."

Remus turns the color of a Gryffindor banner, but Sirius bursts out laughing. When he's regained the ability to speak a few minutes later he acknowledges that yes, that's what it feels like, but he doesn't mind.

He doesn't mind because he remembers what it was like before, when the only outlet the wolf had for its energy was to bite and scratch itself all night long. When Remus would return the day after the full moon covered in proof of the wolf's fury at being contained. If the wolf wants to play instead, then the wolf gets to play.

It changes the relationship between Sirius and Remus. It's so gradual that Sirius can't say for certain when canine stuff started bleeding over into human stuff. He just knows that alone amongst Remus' friends, he finds himself acting silly and roughhousing with the quiet young man. He tackles Remus in corridors, drags Remus along in his wake with an elbow around his neck, halfway carries him up or down a staircase for no reason at all. And he gets away with all of it, because Remus needs to play as much as the wolf does. All the years they've been friends, James and Sirius have respected the reserve Remus seems to have about him and kept their tendency to roughhouse in check around him. Now Sirius knows better. It's not that Remus doesn't like to be touched; it's that he's afraid no one will want to touch him.

"You're awfully physical with him," James comments one day as they go out to the Quidditch pitch. When Remus declined to come watch them practice, Sirius had pretended to be broken hearted and briefly draped himself over Remus to sob disconsolately, to the amusement of their fellow breakfasters.

"I'm awfully physical with most people," Sirius says philosophically, emphasizing the point with an arm thrown around James' shoulders.

"Yeah, but _really_ with him."

"Well, it's canine stuff." Sirius means to sound dismissive, but realizes his voice came out prideful. He's proud of being the first person to realize they've been using kid gloves when a different approach was called for.

"You're his toy once a month, and he's yours the rest of the time, is that it?"

The implication is impossible to miss, but Sirius is in too good a mood to take offense, so he decides to beat James at his own game. "James, you are _ever_ so suggestive," Sirius says, pretending to be scandalized, making a show of checking around them to see if anyone was close enough to overhear. "Well, I realize what I have to say won't make the situation any better, but... Remus likes the way I touch him. He just doesn't know it yet."

"You're right," James says, holding his hands up to gesture defeat. "That made it sound way worse than I did."

"He craves it."

"Sirius-"

"He _yearns_ for a strong, dominant male to awaken his sense of-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH." James covers his ears and runs for the Quidditch Pitch. Sirius follows at a regular pace, smirking, confident he has shut that line of teasing down for good.

* * *

><p>The night that Sirius first springs into action as the Marauders' Secret Weapon is one of the most frightening of his life.<p>

It's the fifth moon they spend together. They are on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, the wolf and dog loping along stride for stride, the stag keeping pace on the wolf's other side with Peter for headgear as usual. Then the thing happens that Sirius has never before seen, yet instantly recognizes-the wolf suddenly stops, his body rigid, a low growl in his throat and a new look in his eye.

Sirius leaps in front of him, lowering his head and growling louder, trying to bluff. Canines care a lot about dominance. But the wolf doesn't even look at him; with a single graceful bound he's over Sirius' back and racing for the village.

Sirius runs, making a yelp that would have come out "James!" if he'd had the capacity to speak. He means to jump on the wolf, tackle him, but he can't get close enough; the wolf has a lead, just half a step too far, and he's too bloody fast.

James comes charging down noisily after them, and the wolf turns his head to see what's going on. It's just enough distraction for Sirius to close the gap and-

_ He's going to kill me_.

The pounce-and-tackle games in the Shack were never like this. The wolf never bit to wound like this. For a crucial moment Sirius can't fight back, paralyzed by the shock of the pain's intensity. He feels himself shaken and then the wolf drops him like a broken toy. He lays there stunned, struggling to get the breath back in his lungs, until he hears the stag's bellow of pain. Sirius twists his head and sees the wolf trying to rip James' throat out.

Sirius goes for the throat himself. He gets a good hold on the wolf's neck, James gets away, and for a moment it looks like Sirius is going to be able to use the canine pack mentality after all and get the wolf to yield to him. But then the wolf makes a noise. It is so unmistakably a noise of intense pain that Sirius has loosened his grip long before his brain has reminded him that he's _not_ actually hurting Remus. In fact, by the time Sirius remembers that holding onto the wolf is the best thing he could do for Remus, the wolf is halfway back to Hogsmeade.

He has plenty of time to regret it.

Again and again that night, James traps the wolf, forces it back a few yards. The wolf finds a way past his antlers and either goes for his flank or, more often, ignores him in favor of trying to reach the village. Again and again, Sirius cuts off his path to the village and fights him back towards the Shack until he slips past Sirius and it's James' turn again. It feels like never-ending purgatory. Even when they do finally reach the Shack, the wolf won't calm. He seems to know he's been denied prey. Finally, James and Sirius are forced to back the wolf into a room and barricade the door, abandoning Remus to the wolf's fury. It makes Sirius want to sink through the floor with shame. But the presence of the Animagi clearly isn't having any effect, and he and James are both leaving blood trails from a dozen wounds; they just can't do anything more. It's difficult to communicate much in these bodies, but Sirius has always been just about able to read James' mind. He knows that a quick look from Sirius to the door the wolf is behind followed by James leaving means _You stay here with him, I'm going to find out what the hell happened to Peter_. As James leaves, Sirius notices that his tail is partially detached, and wonders with a bit of gallows humor how that injury is going to translate to his human form.

It takes about an hour for the howls of rage and frustration to stop, or at least it feels that long to Sirius. They taper off gradually. When there has been silence for several minutes, Sirius noses the door open, needing to see if the wolf has beaten himself unconscious. The wolf is lying on the floor next to a large pile of kindling which had once been furniture, his sides heaving. He looks at Sirius without lifting his head, and his tail wags feebly.

Sirius walks inside and curls up against the wolf's side, grateful for once that he can't speak in this form, because there just aren't not words.

Neither of them move for the rest of the night. James pokes his head in about an hour before sunrise with Peter on his antlers, so Sirius knows they got back all right. After looking at them for a moment James pulls his head back out and goes away. When it's time to go Peter comes back, chittering for Sirius' attention, running back and forth from the inside to the outside of the room.

Sirius doesn't lift his head. The wolf is sleeping. Peter hesitates on the threshold, then runs into the other room. A moment later James looks in again. Sirius meets his eyes and hopes that this will be one of those times James can read his mind. They look at each other for a moment, and then James and Peter go away. Sirius can hear them leave through the trapdoor.

When the wolf starts to contort and make weird little pain noises, Sirius puts his head down on his paws and doesn't really look, although he doesn't really not look either. It's as much of a concession as he's willing to make to some weird need for privacy felt by a person that he _does_ share a dorm with, and has seen naked, and who has seen Sirius mid-transformation, and it _shouldn't_ matter, none of this should matter, Remus should stop making it matter.

He is careful not to transform until the wolf is gone, though.

Remus looks stricken when he sees Sirius. "I did that," he says immediately, his eyes wide. "Is James hurt? Peter? Did I bite-"

Sirius transforms out of the dog body a little reluctantly-everything is always, inexplicably, just a little bit happier as a dog. "Don't be daft. I wouldn't be hanging around here catching some extra sleep before class if anyone got bit."

"What happened?"

Sirius shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. "James and I got a bit bashed, but that's no big deal."

"A bit bashed?" Remus repeats, looking at Sirius aghast. "That's a _bit bashed_?"

Sirius tosses his hair back. "I," he announces, "have hurt myself worse than this by failing to correctly zip up my pants."

Remus laughs. It's a very small huff of a laugh, and Remus looks almost angry at the realization that he let Sirius trick a laugh out of him, but to Sirius it's a sign that if he's careful, he can win. "You, by the way, look like something the dog dragged in," Sirius adds casually. "Of course, you _are_ something the dog dragged in. Maybe if we shove enough breakfast into you we can get you looking decent before class."

"Sirius..."

"Yeah?"

"Do... do I still have company next month?"

The question pierces through the determinedly casual air Sirius has been projecting; he finds himself rounding on Remus, angrily getting right up in his face. "The hell kind of question is that? You think we're idiots? You think we sat around saying, 'Gee, let's wander off into the night with a werewolf and be completely shocked if he ever has a go at us?' If that were true you'd be doing the world a favor if you knocked us off, 'cause we'd be too stupid to live."

Remus just stands there looking weary, not getting angry and not backing down, and Sirius regrets being angry almost before he's calm again. "It's one thing," Remus says, "to tell yourself you're going to deal with something, and another thing entirely to experience it for the first time. I wouldn't hold you to anything."

Sirius draws himself up, every aching, bleeding inch, and announces, "_You_ are not as tough as you think you are."

Remus' eyes widen. He doesn't seem to know whether to splutter denials or to laugh. _Come on, Remus_, Sirius thinks. _Play with me_.

"You-"

"I _am_ technically bigger than you, you know, when I'm a dog," Sirius goes on haughtily. "So just because we're all bleeding and ripped up and all that, don't go thinking I can't handle my step of the Plan. Child's play." He tosses his hair again and throws in an offended sniff for good measure.

He thinks it's the sniff that does it. Remus bursts out laughing, actually clinging to Sirius' shoulders for support. "How dare you," Sirius growls, and goes for the final touch: the tackle.

He has to tackle Remus now, even though it will hurt them both like hell. Because if he doesn't, he will have behaved differently this morning than any other morning, and at some point Remus will realize it, and it will hurt worse that being tackled ever could.

Thus it is that they are both on the floor moaning in pain and laughing in an exhausted, tension-draining sort of way when they hear footsteps on the stairs. Their eyes meet in a panic.

A moment later, Madame Pomfrey comes toward the room, looking concerned. "Remus? Did I hear you cry out?" She sees him and gasps. "Remus!"

Remus looks up at her with a weak grin. The room is a wreck, he himself is injured worse than he has been in months, and, inexplicably, he is petting a large black dog. "Um... Can I keep him?"

The dog makes a snuffling noise than might almost have been a laugh.


	7. Step Six: Return By Dawn

_A/N: Now that the character chapters are done, the remaining chapters are in chronological order. If you need a reminder as to which chapters are part of the regular timeline, they are the prologue, chap 1, chap 3, then this chapter. Apologies for the slow update, I didn't have an outline after the end of the character chapters and had to work something out._

**Step Six: Return By Dawn**

The Marauders sat quietly in McGonagall's office, waiting to learn their fates. McGonagall had instructed them to stay where they were and then left, presumably because they were in enough trouble that the headmaster was being consulted. The dawn was just breaking over the mountains.

"They're serving bacon today," Sirius said wistfully.

"They serve bacon every day," James replied witheringly.

"Which means they're serving it _today_."

James made a lunging motion like he was going to hit Sirius, but Remus lifted a hand and stopped him. "Point of order: his reasoning is technically correct. Although how he can think of bacon at a time like this, I fail to understand."

Peter ventured, "Shouldn't we be using this time to think of a better lie than the one we told McGonagall?"

"Couldn't be much worse," Remus sighed.

* * *

><p>The trouble had started when James and Sirius had realized that the upcoming full moon was their last one as fifth years. They were completely incapable of letting such an occasion pass uncelebrated-and yet, as they discovered to their horror, they were also completely incapable of coming up with any good way to celebrate it.<p>

"It's the exams," Peter said consolingly, a little alarmed by how personally James and Sirius were taking their failure to come up with a good idea. The three of them were gathered by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, taking a quick moment to conspire-or fail to conspire-while Remus was having a word with some of the other prefects at the other end of the room. James was staring into the fire with a sort of hollow expression on his face, and Sirius had gotten up and started pacing. "You've used up all your brains on the O.W.L.s," Peter continued. "It's okay."

"O.W.L.s don't take brains," Sirius snapped. "Not for us. They're pathetic. You're pathetic. Everything's pathetic."

"Your insults are pathetic," James muttered.

Sirius slumped down next to James on the couch. "Is it true, Prongs? Are we losing our touch?"

"Losing? It's gone, mate. We should be putting up lost and found posters. The day you and I can't come up with a simple prank-"

"Celebration," Peter corrected, so quietly that neither of them heard him.

"-for Moony at the end of the term is the day the crippling dullness of adulthood claims us for its own. We should throw ourselves from the astronomy tower to preserve our legacies, before it gets any worse."

"Vetoed," Remus said calmly, sitting down in the armchair that had been Sirius' before his pacing and subsequent slumping on the couch. "Terribly uncelebratory. And don't pretend I don't know what you're plotting. Trying to plot." Remus smiled slightly at the miserable looks on James and Sirius' faces. "Cheer up. I know neither of you has ever had to really study before, so you're unfamiliar with this sense of fatigue most of us experience. Your powers will return in due course."

"It's just that we've _done_ all the good things," Peter said, scratching his head. "We've gone into Hogsmeade, and into the Forest. What's left?"

"Something," James said hoarsely, still staring into the fire.

"_Something_," Sirius echoed, looking balefully at the ceiling.

"We could try staying inside the Shack, not getting into trouble and enjoying each other's company," Remus suggested dryly.

James and Sirius looked at each other with utmost despair. "He's slipping," Sirius said.

"Back to square one," James confirmed. "We're losing him. We have _got_ to pull ourselves together, Padfoot. Moony's future is at stake. He and Wormtail may wind up _law-abiding citizens_ if we can't set a better example."

Sirius looked grave. "You know what this means? We mustn't throw ourselves from the astronomy tower after all. Despite the damage that will doubtless ensue to our legacies, we must continue on with our imperfect tomfoolery. For the sake of our friends' very lives!"

"I see your senses of humor are recovering," Remus said with a sigh, and abandoned the conversation for a book.

* * *

><p>Yet despite the perceived urgency of the situation, the full moon arrived without James and Sirius having come up with a plan.<p>

"We'll just have to play it by ear," James said desperately in the final moments they could consult one another, wrapped up in the Invisibility Cloak as they headed down to the Willow. "Take what opportunities arise and run with them. Read each other's minds."

"Not Hogsmeade, though. Last thing we want is another bad night on the last night of term."

"Yeah, no, not that. But where _can_ we go?"

"Maybe we should stay put like he suggested?" Peter said, his voice somewhat muffled from speaking into Sirius' shoulder. They had grown enough this year that fitting under the Cloak together required getting chummy. "He probably suggested it because that's what he wants to do."

"Ridiculous," James scoffed.

"A fine example of underwhelming thinking," Sirius agreed. "If that was _really_ what Moony wanted, he wouldn't go on hanging out with _us_, would he?"

Peter couldn't argue.

* * *

><p>So it was that the Marauders found themselves roaming the Forbidden Forest all night, desperately in search of an adventure that just wouldn't come.<p>

They investigated a suspicious rustling in the leaves with no results.

They followed some promisingly large spider webs, but all the webs they found were empty. They entered the area Professor Kettleburn had told them was where the unicorns foraged, but despite their best efforts at stealth and sending Peter on ahead to scout, they didn't catch a glimpse.

After a few hours of this, James caught Sirius' eye and gestured with his left foreleg towards the wolf. He was thinking, _Even if only humans can catch lycanthropy, other animals might still have good reasons to be scared of werewolves. Maybe they can smell him or something._

Whether Sirius guessed James' thoughts exactly or not, the next time they passed running water Sirius threw the wolf into it. James wanted to roll his eyes-_a wet wolf still smells like a wolf, you genius-_until he realized that going through the water would at least would cut off their trail. Whether that would do them any good or not was anyone's guess, but at least it was _something_.

_ Also, dogs like to play in water_, James amended, watching Sirius and the wolf wrestling. _Maybe I need to let go and live in the moment more_.

_ Of course, if I jump in and join the game without thinking, with Peter on my antlers, he might drown. Alas, responsibility._

So it was James who, later in the night, found the markings of what he thought might be a trail the centaurs used and marshaled the other three along it. Sirius seemed to have lost the spirit of adventure and was constantly sidetracking himself and the wolf with canine antics, making it hard for James to herd them along. And Peter, normally so quiet that James forgot he was there, became increasingly restive as the night went on. James tried to ignore the rat doing what felt like a tap dance across his skull, feeling that if they could at least get a glimpse of a centaur or even one of their dwellings, it would count as a sufficient end-of-year adventure.

Until the rat bit his ear. James shook his head violently; Peter landed several feet away with a rather nasty _plop_. He immediately gathered himself up on his hindquarters, listing to one side and squeaking like mad. At first James thought he was leaning to one side because he had been hurt in the fall, but then he realized Peter's tiny little rodent forearms were trying to point at something. Odd, normally when Peter wanted to draw their attention to something he just ran over to it. It must be too high up for him to reach.

James looked up, in the direction Peter was leaning, and saw light in the east.

_ Oh shit_, he thought.

* * *

><p>They didn't make it back to the Shrieking Shack. They hadn't even gotten to the edge of the Forest before the wolf sudden collapsed, making an eerie keening noise.<p>

Sirius was the only one who had seen the transformation before. Knowing what was coming almost made it worse this time, but he stood by his policy of never shying away from anything to do with the wolf, and stayed where he was as the convulsions and screaming took over. James took his cue from Sirius and stood protectively close on the wolf's other side, trying to convince himself he wasn't unnerved by any of this. Peter, however, fled behind a nearby tree until it was over.

An exhausted, "I hate you all," was their cue that it was safe to transform. Remus looked paler than usual, his face more drawn than it had been for months. Maybe it was more the thought of what was coming than what had just passed.

"Peter!" Sirius roared, as the three of them got to their feet. A shamefaced Peter came out from behind a tree and joined them.

"This isn't a big deal," James said, thinking fast. "We're not far from the Whomping Willow. Remus, you can dart through from this end and get to the Shack before Madame Pomfrey. The rest of us will sneak back up to the castle, and you'll bring the Cloak back with you."

"Why are you still talking?" Sirius said through gritted teeth, grabbing James and Remus by the collars of their shirts and hauling them forward. "Move."

It was amazing how much more sinister the Forest seemed when they were in their human bodies, even with daylight coming on rapidly. The four of them hurried along the outskirts in silence until they were almost within range of the Willow's branches. "Peter, go and freeze it for him," Sirius said tersely.

"I can't."

"Don't be an ass," James snarled. "The tree's your job, remember? Step number two!"

"I can't," Peter said again, and then he pointed. The boys turned to see Madame Pomfrey, standing with a long branch held loosely in her hands, staring directly at them. Shock was already giving way to anger on her face.

* * *

><p>The door to Professor McGonagall's study opened. Professor Dumbledore entered, unaccompanied. The little conversations that had been going on amongst the four students instantly fell silent.<p>

Dumbledore stood so that he was in the center of the row of four boys, folded his hands, and looked at them with the unequaled blend of sternness and disappointment that only he could produce. "I would like to hear what happened directly from you."

His gaze had not singled any one of them out. Predictably, after some sort of unspoken group nomination, it was James who became spokesperson. "Well, we woke up and we noticed Remus wasn't in the dorm, so we went looking for him, and we found him outside by the forest," James offered.

"Remus?" Dumbledore asked.

With uncharacteristic forthrightness, Remus replied, "It's not my fault, sir. I didn't tell them. They're nosy gits."

Dumbledore hastily turned a laugh into a cough. "Hey!" Sirius protested, pointing an accusing finger at Remus.

James lifted a hand. "Point of order. He didn't tell us, and we are, in fact, nosy gits."

Sirius stopped to think back on how they had found out about Remus' lycanthropy. "Oh. Right." He slumped in his chair.

"I think perhaps you and I should discuss this alone, Remus," Dumbledore said.

Sirius shot upright again. "Hey, don't get him in trouble because the rest of us are nosy gits! Just put me and James in detention like usual. And Peter too," he added as an afterthought.

"Alas, students are still unable to dictate their own punishments," Dumbledore said. He was smiling, but that didn't ease the other Marauders' distress. "If you'll come with me, Remus."

Remus got up and followed Dumbledore without looking at anyone. James and Sirius looked at each other in horror. "Did we just get Moony in actual trouble for our end of year prank?" Sirius hissed.

"Don't say that. Think. We'll figure out and way out of this." But nothing was coming. The two great minds were, once again, depleted of all ideas.

* * *

><p>Dumbledore directed Remus into a nearby empty classroom. "Remus," he said, as soon as the door was closed behind them, "are your classmates bothering you?"<p>

"What?"

"I have a shrewd guess, from the preceding conversation, that your friends are fully aware of your condition. I know that Mr. Potter and Mr. Black have a tendency to impose their will on those around them and are not above bullying to get their way. Therefore, I must ask you to trust me, and to tell me the real reason they were down there with Mr. Pettigrew this morning-waiting, perhaps, to surprise you the morning after the full moon." Dumbledore's face was grave, and his blue eyes were fixed on Remus'. "There is no shame in letting an adult know if something untoward is happening to you, Remus."

Despite the obvious concern behind Dumbledore's inquiry, Remus' first instinct was to laugh. He didn't even feel bad about lying in his reply. The details of who was where when were unimportant; what Dumbledore wanted to know was how Remus was being treated, and he could be honest about that. "It wasn't a surprise, sir. I knew they were waiting for me, so we could get a head start on the end of term celebrations. That's why I didn't wait for Madame Pomfrey, when I found I was feeling all right. I suppose they ought to have waited at the dorm, but... well, sir, I think they just feel like they want to _do_ something for me, however small. To show that they're not frightened of it and they wish they could make it easier on me. They aren't bullying me at all. I would never have told them, but I think their finding out about it might be the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Remus stopped there, horrified to realize that a lump of real emotion had made itself felt in his throat. Dumbledore beamed at him. "I must confess that I have suspected your dormmates were aware of your condition for some time now. I am delighted to know that this is a source of joy rather than consternation for you. However, you would do well to remind your friends that students are not permitted that close to the Forest without adult supervision. You will have to rendezvous with them elsewhere."

"Are you going to put them in detention?"

"Oh, I think it's possible that, in some sense, the term has already ended and it's therefore too late to give out detentions," Dumbledore said with a wink. "Of course, if this were to happen during the regular course of a term, I would give very severe detentions indeed, but as matters stand..."

* * *

><p>Remus went back to McGonagall's office by himself. The other three looked up at him tensely. "Well?" James asked.<p>

"You _owe_ me," Remus replied.


	8. Step Seven: Mischief Managed

A/N: This chapter takes place approximately a week after chapter six. A final prank and a summing up of past adventures brings both the Marauders' fifth year and this story to a close. I hope you have all enjoyed.

**Chapter Seven: Mischief Managed**

On the last day of his fifth year at Hogwarts, Sirius was awakened by his pants trying to escape.

He was aware they were trying to escape because he had fallen asleep on top of yesterday's outfit, rumpled up on his bed. Now the pants were sneakily inching their way out from underneath him, each leg advancing a little bit at a time-

"OI"

Sirius grabbed hold of the pants' left leg. He was dragged halfway out of bed as the pants made a dash for it, hovering and straining in midair as they tried to squirm away from him. "Who the hell charmed my pants?" Sirius snarled, trying his best to sound menacing despite having been dumped onto the floor on his back, legs still entangled in his bedclothes.

Drowsily, the lump that was Peter said, "Yes, Sirius, your pants are charming, but we're sleeping."

Sirius would have said something abusive back, but out of the corner of his eye he noticed Remus' robes were climbing stealthily up his bedpost. "JAMES!" he hollered.

"Snrgerwffhm," James replied.

Sirius' pants were still trying to shake him loose, and the more he tried to kick his legs free of the sheets, the more entangled he seemed to get. As he twisted and thrashed, he noticed Peter's shoes tapping gently under his bed. Sirius filled his lungs. "EVERYONE OUT OF BED. THE CLOTHING IS REVOLTING AND IT IS JAMES POTTER'S FAULT."

Nonsensical shouting was a common enough event in the dorm that even this didn't produce quite the effect Sirius would have liked. Remus was the first to sit up and look around. "Padfoot..." To Remus' immense credit, he stopped himself there, and got out of bed to help untangle Sirius' legs without asking for an explanation.

"Not my fault," James said, his voice thick with sleep, surveying the situation from his bed.

"Then why are you clothes the only ones behaving like clothes?" Sirius demanded, finally getting a proper grip on his pants and yanking them out of the air. They _quivered_ like there was something alive in them.

"It's not my fault!" James repeated.

"Oh dear," Remus said quietly, catching sight of his escaping robes. "I'd better..." Remus climbed onto his nightstand, using his wand to extend his reach just slightly and sweep his robes down from where they had been making their way onto the ceiling.

It was also excellent concealment for whispering a further incantation without anyone noticing.

"JAMES!" Sirius wailed as several more articles of clothing burst out of people's trunks or up from the floor where they had been discarded.

"It's mine too now you idiot!" James exclaimed, diving across his bed to pin down a shirt that seemed to be making for the door.

"Well of _course_ you did your own now that I said-" Sirius broke off, distracted by trying to catch his socks without letting go of the pants he had already captured.

"Aaaah!" Peter, always easy to intimidate, had found himself pinned to the bed by a set of his own robes. "Someone help me! Sirius!"

"I can't!" Sirius said, losing his head completely. "I think my underwear's going to the Great Hall!" And he dashed out of the room.

Despite being wrapped up in battles of their own, the other three looked at each other and immediately burst out laughing.

* * *

><p>The Great Clothing Escape, as it came to be called, lasted all morning and well into the afternoon. Sirius was able to prevent that horror of horrors, his underwear marching into the Great Hall all by itself, but in his haste to hold off that atrocity most of his other clothing got away. The other boys fared better, though no one escaped the prank unscathed. Remus had to throw out a sweater that had wandered into the greenhouses and cuddled up to a bubotuber; Peter suffered humiliation when an attractive Hufflepuff icily informed him that his robes were trying to break into the Hufflepuff ladies' dorm; and Professor McGonagall promised James a detention first thing next year after she discovered his pants cheekily occupying her office chair.<p>

After they had rounded up and disenchanted all of their own clothes, Remus and Peter started helping Sirius with his. Due to Sirius' continued insistence that James was behind the prank, James refused to help and went back to the dorm by himself. Finally, the last pair of pants had been found (Sirius' pants seemed particularly inclined to wander), his shoes had been extricated from a suit of armor, and Professor Dumbledore had cheerfully unwound Sirius' tie from around his own hat and handed it back without a word. The three trooped back to the dorm, tired but cheerful, only to discover that in their absence, James had wound up in a somewhat precarious position.

The room appeared to have been colonized by a large, overly affectionate plant. James was crouched at the head of his bed. He looked like he might have been trying to climb the bedpost when the plant caught up with him and started growing around him; his wand was on the floor several feet away, as though it had been flicked out of his grasp.

James spoke before any of them could do more than gape. "Pads," he said, "I still say I didn't do it. The bit with the clothes. But if I had, I would be very, very sorry and contrite and all that. Terribly sorry. Now will you call this thing off?"

"I didn't do it," Sirius stammered, staring.

"_Now_ you know how I feel!" At James' exclamation, the plant rustled and its feelers crept a few inches forward.

"I think it's a relative of the Tentacula," Remus said, sounding genuinely interested. "Not venomous, just-um-amorous."

"Great," James said through gritted teeth. "Kill it."

"Oh, but if it's what I think it is it's rare," Remus protested quickly. "Professor Sprout ought to have it."

"Excellent. Do that. Shrink it. Freeze it. _Make it stop doing that with its feelers_."

Sirius and Peter snickered. Remus smiled and performed a freezing charm. "Better work your way out of it, James. Go on."

Watching James shimmy his way out of the plant's embrace proved too much for even Remus. By the time he was free, the other three had collapsed to the floor with the discarded clothing they'd been carrying, laughing hysterically. James stalked over to them and promptly hit Sirius over the head.

"Ow!" Sirius grabbed James' ankle and yanked, sending James tumbling to the floor. "I told you I didn't do it!"

"And I told you _I_ didn't do it! But you had to go and get back at me anyway, didn't you!"

"Maybe it was a Slytherin," Peter said, trying to distract them.

"Not this time, Wormtail," James said. "How could a Slytherin get up here into our dorm? Twice? It was one of us."

Remus busied himself charming the plant back into its pot, not commenting. "And it wasn't nice, charming my underwear out the door," Sirius said darkly.

"It wasn't nice to _frame_ me by _not_ charming my clothes right away," James added, frustrated.

"Hang on." Sirius was looking at Remus. "How do you know how to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Get that plant to shrink."

Remus shrugged. "I just do."

Sirius stared at him. So did James. The corner of Remus' mouth twitched.

"It was _you_!" James and Sirius exclaimed in unison.

"I felt bad for you after the last full moon," Remus explained, struggling not to smile. "You know, when your poor brains were exhausted and you couldn't come up with a good prank-excuse me, celebration-so we spent the whole night searching for an adventure and never found one? And we looked so long that we wound up out past dawn and I had to lie like crazy to get you all out of trouble? Well, I thought that since we didn't run into any kind of adventure on that day, I would try to create one for you all today."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Peter looked a little frightened. He glanced back and forth between Sirius and James, determined not to react until he knew how they were going to. James and Sirius both looked like someone had dropped something heavy on their heads.

"He pranked us," James said, turning to Sirius. His voice was low and hushed. Almost reverent. "Do you realize what just happened, Padfoot? Moony _pranked_ us. And he got us."

Sirius looked so proud that he might actually shed a tear over it. "Do you know what this means, Prongs? All our hard work has paid off. It's like-it's like he blossomed from some rule-abiding caterpillar into a beautiful, mischief-making butterfly."

Remus burst out laughing. Peter looked perplexed. "You mean no one's mad at him?"

"Oh, Wormtail." James gave him a patronizing pat on the back. "One day you, too, will mature into a fully fledged Marauder. Until that day we can only press on, knowing our efforts are not in vain."

"How long would you have let me and James accuse each other?" Sirius asked.

"Quite a while," Remus said cheerfully, placing the plant (now completely contained in its pot) on his bedside table. "I knew you'd forget all about it when you found out I was behind it. I'd actually planned a third-"

There was a loud _whooshing_ noise. Sirius, who had reached for the handle to the dorm's door to pull himself to his feet, snatched his hand back as the door shot up the wall and settled into the middle of ceiling.

"Prank," Remus finished with a sigh.

* * *

><p>That night was the last night of the year at Hogwarts, a time when the Marauders traditionally stayed awake. Why sleep, when in a few short hours they wouldn't be able to use magic, and wouldn't have each other at hand to scheme with, and only one of them (James) would be somewhere he liked anywhere near as well as Hogwarts? Sirius in particular was depressed at having to leave. It was while they were all lying around in the dorm, trying to cheer him up, that James pointed out, "At least you know you won't spend this summer trying to figure out how Peter gave himself permanent whiskers."<p>

"Or being experimented on by two friends who _swear_ they're trying to get rid of them," Peter put in.

"We were." James grinned. "Mostly."

Remus smiled. "Or wondering what your dear friends are doing without you, fearing they are tired of your company, when they are in fact perfecting a complicated seven-step plan to ensure they can spend _more_ time with you."

"Actually, I just sort of made the steps up while I was telling you about it that first time," James confessed. "I mean, of course we'd thought about how it would work and all, but that was just a way to explain it. Dunno why the steps stuck."

"'Cause it's fun," Sirius said with a shrug. "Who the hell can remember why we call ourselves Marauders anymore? We just do."

"Step one," Peter said eagerly, as if wanting to prove he knew the steps as well as everyone else. "The Willow Whomps."

"Onto James," Sirius added promptly. "The Willow Warrior."

"Shut up."

"And now we know how long the Willow will stay frozen after you touch the knot," Peter pointed out.

James glared at him. "Although _some_ of us choose not to use that information to save certain _others_ of us from a beating-"

"Step two," Remus intervened. "Enter Peter Pettigrew."

"The Rat King," James said.

"Shut up."

"Five inches of pure nerve," Remus said. "Not counting tail."

"I did take on those other rats that one time, didn't I?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "If by 'take on' you mean 'scare away by stinking of werewolf,' then yes, Peter, you took them on."

"Well, it takes a bit of nerve to get cozy with the wolf too, you know. No offense, Remus."

"None taken."

"And step three," James said. "A rollicking good time is had by all."

Everyone spoke at once. "Like that time we got out in the snowstorm-"

"-when we first left the Shack and were all running on the hill-"

"-when we saw hippogriffs flying over the forest-"

"-the time Prongs fell through the landing in the Shack and looked like Bambi on the ice-"

"-hey, what about when Wormtail stepped in pine sap-"

"-Padfoot got the wolf to roll over and over down the hillside-"

"-yeah, well, don't forget the time Padfoot started chasing his tail-"

"That was _on purpose_, how many times do I-"

It took a long time for everyone to have their say on the subject of 'a rollicking good time.' But finally, Sirius said: "Step four: The utterly ridiculous, overly be-antlered Prongs."

James cleared his throat. "The Noble Prongs," Remus corrected in a long-suffering tone, rolling his eyes.

Sirius went on. "Friendly carrier of rats everywhere."

"Thanks for that, James," Peter commented.

"I hate you."

"You really _did_ look like Bambi on the ice, James. Not just when you fell through the floor, but the first time, when Sirius and I were dancing about under your legs so much."

"_Gee I wonder why._ Next step: the Marauder's Flea-Ridden Weapon."

"Flea-ridden, James? Is that the best you can come up with?"

"Scruffy? Mangy?"

"Watch it, Wormtail."

"Y'know, Pads, I was dead right when I named you the secret weapon, but I thought it was going to be because you could pin the wolf in a fight. Instead it's because you can get the wolf to sit, stay, and play fetch."

"Aw, Remus is blushing," Peter pointed out with delight.

"What can I say?" Sirius asked. "Dogs gotta play. Just like rats gotta hide and stags gotta look ridiculous, apparently. Step six: the Marauders return by dawn."

"Hear that, everyone? _Return by dawn_. Not _after_ dawn, with their poor, trusting wolf trapped away from-"

"We get it, Remus, we get it," James groaned. "Step seven. Mischief managed."

No one spoke for a moment. The fact that they would be parting from each other in a few hours suddenly seemed to loom before them, making the words _mischief managed_ seem very final. Peter broke the silence. "Until next year, anyway."

"Until next year," Sirius agreed quickly.

"After all," Remus said, the corners of his mouth twitching, "the events of the past few days show us that poor Prongs and Padfoot are utterly out of mischief-making ideas. They need a few months to recuperate."

"You have just reserved the right to be the recipient of the first prank of sixth year," James informed him.

"Just like this year, then."

"Yes," Sirius said. "It'll be just like this year." There was something in his voice that was a little too thoughtful, a little too serious for talking about pranks, and even though it was only there for a moment, everyone seemed to catch it. "Mischief managed my arse."

"We better rename that step."

"Until next time," Remus suggested.

"No, let's do it now," Peter said.

"I mean name it _until next time_, you moron. Everything is wrapped up until next time."

"But it's not!" James suddenly looked panicked. "We have to start planning the first prank of next year. Right now, while we have time to make it memorable. Paaads..."

Remus sighed. "We are all hopeless."

"Let's not call it that," Sirius said, with a straight face.

"Back to square one?"

"That'll do."

"Yeah. That'll do."

_~the end~_


End file.
